Politics
Anti-Trump Washington Post Columnist Flips, Praises POTUS’ Swift Action On Key Issue
A longtime critic of President Donald Trump is now crediting him with decisively solving one of the nation’s biggest problems: illegal immigration. Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen, who has often taken aim at Trump, is now praising his administration’s swift action in addressing the border crisis, calling the results undeniable.
In his latest Post Opinions column, Thiessen laid out staggering new border statistics, showing an unprecedented drop in illegal crossings since Trump returned to the White House. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) encountered just 15,700 migrants at the southern border in the first 30 days of Trump’s second term—the lowest in nearly eight years. This is a 94% decline from the record-high 263,900 encounters in December 2023 under former President Joe Biden.
Thiessen, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, acknowledged that Trump didn’t need new legislation to get the job done. Despite Biden’s claims that he needed a bipartisan bill to secure the border, Trump implemented executive actions that immediately reversed the crisis.
“Since Trump’s inauguration, the southern border has suddenly become quiet,” Thiessen wrote. A week later, on Feb. 22, border encounters fell even further—to just 200—marking the lowest single-day total in over 15 years, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The administration has credited these drastic reductions to a series of executive orders and policy reversals that took effect immediately upon Trump’s return to office.
Within days of his inauguration, Trump declared a national border emergency, allowing for the deployment of 5,000 active-duty troops to assist Border Patrol. He reinstated the “Remain in Mexico” policy, requiring asylum seekers to wait outside the U.S. while their cases were processed—a policy Biden had eliminated early in his presidency.
The Trump administration also ended Biden’s controversial “catch and release” policy, ensuring that illegal migrants were detained rather than released into American communities. Trump further pressured Mexico into deploying 10,000 National Guard troops to help secure the border.
Perhaps most significantly, the administration issued an executive order terminating all taxpayer-funded benefits for illegal migrants, including housing and healthcare assistance. The president also designated eight violent gangs and drug cartels—including MS-13—as foreign terrorist organizations, granting federal agencies broader authority to dismantle them.
Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen
In addition to securing the border, Trump has begun an aggressive deportation campaign, focusing on illegal migrants with criminal records. Between Jan. 21 and Feb. 18, ICE removed 42,048 individuals, with some being sent to Guantánamo Bay, according to DHS.
These actions have strong public backing. Thiessen argues that Biden’s refusal to use existing presidential powers was a “crisis of choice,” not necessity. “Biden could have taken any or all of these steps,” he wrote. “He had all the authority he needed to secure the border. He chose not to do so. Instead, he unleashed the largest surge of illegal migrants in U.S. history. His border debacle was a crisis of choice.”
“Apparently, all it took to control our southern border was presidential will and a new border czar. Unlike Biden, Trump is choosing to enforce the law — and that is the first step to restoring America’s place as a nation of legal immigrants,” Thiessen finished.
